[I am just testing out the WordPress ‘aside’ format] – To say that whereas journalists have traditionally been paid by revenues which come through advertising (by their institution) – newer purveyors of news and opinion: bloggers, and other social media stars in their own right, can earn money from publishing on an individual basis. Personally organising their own advertising or sponsorship to appear on their blogs or other social channels. They hope or even expect to be paid in exchange for covering stories from brands, and why shouldn’t they? OFT rules on this are clear – it is prohibited to use editorial content to promote a product, where the trader has paid for the promotion, without making that clear in the content. Disclosure is key.

There are many rapid checks that can be made to verify whether a tweeter is likely to be legitimate – including checking out their recent tweets, their follower to following ratio, and stated location. Another good signal of whether a fire report is genuine, is whether they are having Twitter conversations about the fire with other, similarly legitimate looking tweeters, especially in the local area. This certainly worked for me this year on two separate occasions when I looked to Twitter for information / confirmation: during the riots, and during a local power cut.

London Fire Brigade has used Twitter for information on fires in the past. At the beginning of the year LFB was faced with a lack of information when a police helicopter was unavailable to reach a large fire in west London. It asked its Twitter followers to take pictures and describe the scene. This allowed for a more detailed assessment of the situation and the subsequent dispatch of around 75 fire fighters. London Fire Brigade states without Twitter it would have taken longer to control the fire.

While anonymity has been equated with lack of authenticity and cowardice, Poole said, “I think that’s totally wrong. Anonymity is authenticity.” Only in the safety of anonymity, he argued, can people play in the most honest way.

technoutopianism. I’m not a teenager anymore. I’ve changed, but in so many ways you haven’t—and I see you more clearly now… you’re selfish. You never really wanted what was best for me, or for any of the rest of us; you wanted deregulation and radical individualism, wanted us out of your way so you could take the whole world—the Whole Earth—for your playground. Hawai’i is for lovers, and your shiny silver future was only for a network of the already privileged and powerful. You got a taste of “the Long Boom”; we got “likes” and LOLcats.

In online forums, we write for positive and negative response, for the conversation, for the pursuit of deeper understanding, for the feedback we get and the resulting whole. I love this line on Gransnet which sums it up neatly:

it isn’t my thread. Once I’ve pressed the “post message” button, it belongs to everyone on gransnet

This sentiment is endlessly difficult to sell or even explain to those whose livelihoods have depended on the commodification of information, ideas and opinion. As the recent Leveson report has shown, the advent of the industrial press has led to cultural particularities both positive and negative, but ultimately a participatory attitude is hard to adopt, by people below and above the line(PDF), when equity is not appreciated or sought.

While there is any inbalance of financial and reputational consequences for what is written, the public conversation cannot be the best, most inclusive, most honest version of itself. But we can attempt to aid it in this direction, starting with:

Payment for both starting and continuing the conversation

Pseudonymity so that one participating individual’s reputational and legal liability does not outweigh the others

A standard for clear and attributable apologies / corrections for inaccuracies and mistakes by those on any side of any lines